


Buried Beneath All the Lies

by Lizardbeth



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Cylons, Infidelity, M/M, Mind Games, New Caprica
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-18
Updated: 2012-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-29 18:27:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardbeth/pseuds/Lizardbeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had something once - but how much was truth and how much were lies?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buried Beneath All the Lies

Sam said goodnight to Galen and laughed as the flaps of his tent seemed determined to keep him out, getting all tangled. Humming under his breath and filled with the tingle of booze under his skin, he shuffled forward in the dark, groping for the lamp. He found it and turned it on the lowest setting, letting the dim glow fill the small tent.

His tent wasn't empty.

One of the Leobens was standing there, watching him. Sam's heart lurched and he grabbed for a gun that he didn't have. _Frak. They know._ Then he remembered the Leoben who had come in when he'd been sick, looking for Kara, and rage filled him like a hot wind. He rushed forward. "Tell me where she is, you son of a bitch!"

He knocked them both down onto the bed, making it skid across the floorboards with a nasty screech, and he landed on top with his hands around Leoben's throat. "Where is she? Tell me right frakking now..."

"Or what?" Leoben countered, breathless and hoarse, but amused. "You'll kill me again?"

"Where is she?" Sam demanded furiously, tightening his grip and clenching his jaw. Yes, he was going to kill the son of a bitch, and damn the consequences.

Somehow, Leoben broke his hold with a sudden move and flipped Sam onto his back instead. He was kneeling across Sam's hips, his hands holding down Sam's wrists as he looked down into Sam's eyes. "She's in detention," he answered, "as you would be, had I not removed your name from the list. So perhaps a little gratitude instead?"

"Gratitude for putting Kara in a cage? Frak you," Sam spat at him and managed to yank one hand free, to get a hand around Leoben's throat briefly. But Leoben grabbed the free wrist again and slammed it down on the bed. Sam pulled against him and twisted his hips, trying to get free, but Leoben was well-balanced and strong enough to hold him.

"You weren't this feisty on Caprica. I can see why she likes you," Leoben murmured.

Sam's struggles faltered, and he was breathing hard as he repeated in astonishment, "Caprica?"

Leoben smiled. "I promised I'd see you again."

The memories rushed back.

* * *

 _"If you kill this body, my soul will find its home in a new body. You gain nothing."_

 _Sam looked at him, at the strangely deep eyes and the mouth that had been on him not that long ago. Toaster. **Toaster**. Nothing but a Cylon. Maybe if he said it often enough, he'd believe it. "You don't have a soul. You're a **thing**. A machine."_

 _He didn't seem to react to the words at all. "We both swim in the same stream. We both feel -- "_

 _"Shut up! You don't feel anything! It was all a lie."_

 _"No. I never lied to you."_

 _That was too much. Sam lifted the gun, gritting his teeth. "Every word out of your mouth is a lie, Toaster."_

 _"You know that's not true."_

 _"You came here to spy."_

 _"I came here by accident. But then I discovered that I was truly here to help you find your destiny. The first time I saw you I knew you and I were bound together, in the past and the present and for always. If you kill this body, we will find each other again."_

 _Sam shook his head, refusing to hear the twisty words, and his hand trembled. He should just kill him. Put a bullet into him -- **it**. Make it be quiet. He tried to make his voice cold, uncaring. "I am not your plaything, Toaster. I won't be your pet anymore."_

 _Leoben reacted for the first time, showing surprise and shaking his head in denial. "That's not -- "_

 _He reached out, toward Sam._

 _Sam flinched and his finger pulled the trigger in startled reflex._

 _The blast was loud in his ears. For an instant, horror filled him, as Leoben fell backward. His soul seemed to cry out in denial, and he took one instinctive step forward, as if to help._

 _Then his brain reminded him what Leoben really was. He wasn't the friend or the lover Sam had thought. He was a liar and a spy and the enemy._

 _Sam's heart clenched too tightly in his chest, and he could barely force out a breath as he watched the Cylon die. He - it - looked at Sam, blood pooling on his chest. His fingers opened and he tried to lift his hand, but it fell back to the ground. Leoben forced out breathy words, "Someday... we'll leave this behind. You'll understand the truth."_

 _Sam said nothing in reply. But he couldn't turn around and walk away. He was frozen in place, watching. Leoben didn't manage to speak again, but his eyes never left Sam's. Whatever he'd said about being reborn, when the light went out of his eyes and he breathed his last breath, he looked dead._

 _And Sam had killed him._

 _Sam started to shake, and he nearly dropped the gun, shoving it into the holster instead._

 _In memory, his hands traced down the lean body, and he felt phantom lips on his, and as much as he tried to will them away, he couldn't stop remembering. Inside, he was sick with disgust and hate and shame that he'd fallen under the Cylon's spell. The reality he'd thought he'd been living -- a moment of grace and peace in the middle of all this horror -- was gone, proved to be nothing but illusion._

* * *

"Frakking toaster betrayer. Get off me." He arched his back and tried to pull his hands free, but he had no leverage and the alcohol had fuzzed his coordination and his strength, leaving his struggles futile.

Laughing softly, Leoben murmured, "You're not even trying."

"Frak you." The implication stoked the anger back to a high flame. He twisted and heaved, but the more he fought, the less he was able to get anywhere, until he subsided, panting. "Frak. Why are you here?"

"To give you the truth. Everything I told you was true," Leoben said. "It was the One - Cavil - who betrayed **me**. Why do you think he told you what I was? He saw I was attached, and he was afraid I'd turn on them as Sharon had."

"No," Sam shook his head in fierce, angry denial. "That's a lie. It was just a game to you. 'Watch the sad little human cozy up to the enemy while we torture his people and lay ambushes to drag them all into farms,'" he snarled. "You were all **laughing** at how stupid I was, how blind --"

Leoben leaned forward and pressed his lips on Sam's, shutting him up. He pulled back before Sam could bite him. But Sam felt as if he'd been branded with the heat, and it made him all too aware that all his struggles had sent warmth pooling in his groin, too, and he could feel his dick swelling against his pants. He tried to ignore it, push it away as just a side-effect of rubbing against something. It had nothing to do with being held down or being kissed; it had nothing to do with being familiar with this body atop him and how it felt. Nothing.

"Never that, Sam," he murmured. "Well, maybe Cavil was laughing; the Ones are like that. But I wasn't. Because he was right; I was about to tell you. I was about to cast my lot with you and reveal everything."

Sam stared up at him. "That's easy to claim now. But it doesn't mean anything when you didn't actually **do** it. Even when I had my gun on you, you didn't say it."

Leoben's gaze flickered down with shame. "I should have, yes. But I thought you would kill me anyway, and if I told, they would have boxed me as a traitor. But I did help. Who do you think agreed with the Sixes and Eights to pull away from the Colonies so you would live? I did. I persuaded the other Twos that you have a destiny, Samuel Anders. Your soul has always shone so brightly to my eyes. I had to save you."

Sam started to shake, wanting to believe that at least one of them hadn't fooled him so completely. He wanted to believe it had been real. But Cylons would say anything. He needed more. "If that's true, can you free Kara for me?"

Leoben shook his head. "No. But she's alive. She's not being hurt. That much I can tell you."

Sam closed his eyes and let out a long breath. Relief seemed muted. She was alive, but she was still gone. It had been so long since he'd seen the shine of her hair or the light of her eyes. Every day was the same never-ending battle of hiding and running and killing, and he'd felt the darkness enshrouding his spirit grow heavier and heavier. This hell was never going to end.

Leoben's grip on his wrists loosened, and Sam's eyes popped open again in surprise. The Cylon's hands caressed down Sam's forearms, not taking his eyes off Sam as if daring him to move. He didn't, feeling captured in that gaze. His heart was still thumping in his chest from his struggling, and he could feel it in his fingers and underneath where Leoben was touching. "So beautiful," Leoben murmured. "God made you." His fingers trailed the skin of his biceps and his shoulders, and he leaned down, closer and closer, eyes open, waiting for Sam to push him away.

He didn't. They were so close, body to body, with only inches apart at the chest, the heat of his body warming Sam's. When Sam shifted his hips slightly to one side, his groin brushed the matching fullness behind Leoben's pants with a touch that jolted through them both. His lips parted in a soft gasp, and he whispered, "What do you want?"

The answer was simple and obvious. "You."

His lips touched Sam's, at first lightly, as if unsure of his welcome. But Sam brought his hands up to hold his head, keeping him down and locked against his mouth, stubble abrading his lips. It was familiar, it was connection, it was **real**.

They rolled over on their sides, nearly falling off the bed, hands removing shirts hurriedly to return to heated skin, as it grew sweat slick. Leoben licked under his ear, fingers pinching his nipple before slipping down beneath his pants to cup him between the legs. The touch made him shudder and part his legs, as those deft fingers teased him with brief caresses. Sam's hands blindly reached out for anything to touch in return, finding the back of his head and his bristly hair, rubbing it along his palm. Leoben's tongue traced circles on Sam's chest, while his hands opened his pants and freed his growing erection for fingers to circle it.

"Oh gods!" Sam's hoarse cry sounded loud, and Leoben raised his head again to silence him with his lips. That freed Sam to groan his desire into his mouth, and it was good how his hand pulled and stroked and rubbed... but it wasn't enough. Not after all that had happened, he wanted more. He jerked his head to one side and panted, "No, not like this. In you."

"Before, you didn't want..." Leoben said hesitantly.

"Before, I thought you were human. I thought you were telling me the truth. You weren't." Sam shoved his shoulder so Leoben rolled onto his back. Then Sam wriggled out of his pants the rest of the way and, naked, knelt across him. He leaned down close and licked Leoben's open lips and whispered into his mouth. "I want you looking up at me as I take you. And then I want you to come for me. Do you think you can do that, Cylon?" he whispered. He felt Leoben's shiver under his thighs and smiled. "I think you can."

Leoben met his eyes, gaze both heated and somehow sorrowful, and he touched Sam's face with one hand. "I think I would do anything to atone for my sin," he whispered.

The words hit him right in the balls and he had to close his eyes for a moment. "Good. Take off your clothes." Then he looked around for something to use, and grabbed the small bottle of linseed oil from the paint box.

It had been awhile since they'd done this and even longer since Sam had been the one on top, but as he rubbed the oil on his erection, squeezing and twisting to make sure he was hard enough, and Leoben watched and licked his lips, it was as if those years fell away. Leoben's knees went back, his feet over Sam's shoulders, while Sam's hands braced himself on the blanket, he watched Leoben's face as he pushed inside. Every shift of expression, from the way he bit his lower lip and breathed through his mouth and the way his eyes narrowed at the light pain stoked the fire. "Oh gods, do you feel that? You feel so good..."

It wasn't an easy slide into the tight heat, but so worth it when they were nested together, and he paused for a moment, closing his eyes and gathering himself together. Leoben's cock pushed against his belly, twitching with every jerk of Sam's hips.

Something warm and wet touched his chest and he shivered, glancing down, to see that Leoben had blue paint on his fingers and was painting a line down the center of his chest. "Stop it," Sam said, "Don't." Leoben ignored him, and Sam couldn't make him stop, trapped deep inside him and his hands holding up his weight. He shuddered when Leoben painted both nipples, nearly climaxing right then, and he figured the only way to make him stop was to move.

Leoben's hands gripped his arms tightly as Sam frakked him, anger and lust like twin fires, driving him deeper and harder, until there was nothing but the pressure and need inside him, coiling up, tighter and hotter until it jolted up his spine and across his skin. And his muscles flexed and pushed again and again, and for one breathless instant it felt like it would last forever.

Until it stopped, and he tried to remember how to breathe as the wave subsided. He was still sinking down off it, when he heard Leoben give a choked little moan and he opened his eyes in time to see Leoben throw back his head, and he jerked beneath Sam. Feeling the uncontrolled movements and his come pulse on Sam's skin sent a little aftershock through him, making his fingers tingle and his cock twitch. "Oh gods, I'd forgotten," he whispered, letting himself collapse bonelessly forward. "I'd forgotten what that felt like."

Leoben was warm beneath him and slippery, and his lips found Sam's neck and kissed him lazily. Sam didn't want to move, relaxing into the haze of pleasure and the lassitude in his body. His heart beat slowed from its frantic pounding, and the sweat on his back started to feel cold, but he stayed still, fingers idly smoothing the curve of Leoben's shoulder and down his arm.

The smell of oil paint suddenly jarred him alert again. His thoughts suddenly became crystal clear as if the sun had come out and cast its merciless light on the reality of what had just happened.

 _Kara._ Who was a prisoner of the Cylons. And he'd just frakked a Cylon on their bed. In their tent. With her paint on him.

"Oh gods. What have I done?" he whispered.

It felt like a huge stone had fallen on his chest, and he couldn't breathe past the pain. He pushed at Leoben, shoving him right off the bed. "Get out. Leave me alone. I shouldn't have done this. This was a terrible mistake. Get out." As if making him go away would somehow magically erase what he'd done.

Leoben didn't argue or seem surprised, just resigned. "All right. If that's what you want." Sam curled up on the bed, facing the other way while Leoben dressed, but he still heard Leoben's murmur, "You may regret it, but I don't, Sam. Never."

Sam laughed once, bitterly. 'Regret'? Was that what he was feeling? Was that what he should call it, when he wanted to leap out of this tent and keep running and never stop? "Get out."

Finally he was gone, leaving Sam alone in a tent that smelled of sex and paint and guilt.

 

* * *

 

Leoben went out into the cool darkness. He reached the main avenue when he heard a cheerful, familiar voice off to the side. "Don't look so glum, my brother." He turned to see one of the Ones waiting for him. "You got what you wanted, and so did he." He nodded toward the tent.

Leoben remembered how Sam's face had so quickly changed from blissed out pleasure to stricken horror. "Did he? I don't think so. Why did you want me to do this?"

One's mocking smile was always too shark-like for Leoben. "You looked lonely, with all your brothers playing with Kara Thrace. Why not enjoy yourself on the one you have a crush on?" He laughed. "Your seduction technique is so flawless I should take notes. He believed all your lies and frakked you like that." He snapped his fingers. "All those lies -- they were lies, weren't they, brother?" he asked, dark eyes staring into Leoben's, his humor turned into baleful warning.

Leoben stared back. "I proved my loyalty," he returned. "We're done now."

One laughed, clapped Leoben on the shoulder, and started away. He called back over his shoulder. "Play with him whenever you get the urge. It'll just get funnier, if the big shot Cylon killer keeps frakking a Cylon."

Leoben hurried after him, praying no human had heard that. "Brother! Be quiet."

One turned on him, grabbing his shirt and hissing, "Be glad I don't have him brought to detention to cut his hands off, brother. The Twos can play your silly games with Kara Thrace, and in return, you do what I say when it comes to Anders. Are we clear?"

Leoben clenched his jaw. "We're clear."

"Good. Because if you don't, not only will I stand there and watch as the Fives beat him to death, I will box you. Remember that."

Leoben watched him go, hate and impotent anger like a fire in his chest, and as he stood there in the dark, alone, he tried to hold onto his faith that God wanted the Cylons to help the Humans and guide Sam and Kara forward to their destinies. But everything about New Caprica was turning dark and horrible, and he was growing more certain that God wanted nothing to do with this place.


End file.
